- The TOSCARS - a Terragen OSCARS style event hosted by Danny Gordon and Paul Bussey. It honored members of the Terragen community, with various nominations and winners in 18 categories.

- Scene Building#1 by Martin Huisman (Tangled Universe) covered user interface aspects on the node network in this session, and he covered step by step scene building. During this session a scene was built from scratch using a World-Machine 2 based heightfield.

This demonstrated how to understand the rules which apply to the node network and how to make the best use of them, as well as how to avoid common mistakes!

1 - How to go from the default skies and clouds to some realistic looking cumulus clouds2 - How to make a monster cumulonimbus clouds and make it look real! (The last part is the hard part, but I will tell you all the tricks)3 - The secret sauce for amazing sunsets!

-Scene Building #2 by Martin Huisman continued his super scene building tips and tricks:-

- Using Terragen Commercially by Ron Miller. This professional illustrator and author presented the best of his Terragen artwork from his portfolio through an interview style session with the 3D Art Direct magazine editor Paul Bussey.

The presentation included how Ron uses Terragen on a commercial basis to rapidly create scenes specified by his clients.

This session included the creation of height maps using Photoshop and importing them into Terragen.

Here is the first set of responses to the poll that I put out on the TERRALIVE webinar conference. Chime in by taking part in the poll or respond to this post to say if you agree/disagree with the comments and choices made below.

Remember you can already sign up to a FREE Terragen community webinar session on Saturday the 5th of January. See www.3DArtLive.com/terralive

The conference WILL BE RECORDED, so if you purchase a conference seat, you'll get a recording of all the sessions as well. It will be best to take part live, since you'll be able to drill down on any particular questions you have with the artists presenting the sessions.

I can also confirm that TANGLED UNIVERSE will be hosting one of the sessions and will be representing http://www.nwdanet.com at the conference.

Which two features of Terragen Classic or Terragen 2 would you like to see explained most?

1. The logic behind connecting nodes. Some nodes have obvious inputs, while other need no inputs. Like terrain/shaders connect to the planet, as does atmosphere. Makes sense. Add water (lake) and there's no connection (to the planet.) Why you can change values during a render. Why isn't that locked out until the render completes or is stopped?2. Atmosphere tg2 intersect underlying tg23. Warp Shader and Function Nodes.4. The node network from simple to intermediate projects.5. Lighting6. I would like to learn how to make gravel, rocks, and boulders. and lay them out in a terrain in a natural way. A rock slide for example, where the rocks have fallen in some place and not others. 7. Power Fractals and expanding on the Blue Math Nodes for additional terrains effect ideas.8. Simple shape shaders.9. Varying population techniques, animation in depth, terrain generating and an intro to blue nodes10. Not so much explained but I personally, and feel many beginners(which I'm not, just maths impaired)also get totally stumped by all the math function nodes and would like to see them implemted as a GUI like in most of the apps I've used in past times. Discuss why water level and the ground height are different.11. Atmospherics and blending/merging heightfields 12. Lack of presets in TG2 makes it imperative to understand which parameters are important and how they function as well as their interplay. Daunting for newbies.13. intersect underlying14. Global Illumination, ways to improve (reduce) renders times.15. Best way to make a HDRI for IBL. Roads and tunels16. Clouds and atmosphere Lighting17. procedure for making all work away from origin not be skewed. procedure for overlapping effects and DEMS and controlling where surface layers blend.18. new cloud features particularly cloud terrain following blue nodes19. Making the colors of the terrain look real. I feel my pictures don't have enough detail in their color. 2. Setting up multiple controlled plant populations in scenes.20. creating specific worlds

Which well known Terragen artist would you like to meet and learn about most?

What aspect of Terragen or Terragen 2 do you think holds beginners back most?

1. Nodes, especially shaders2. Its power and complexity?3. Minimalistic GUI. I've come to embrace it though. Better than opening up Maya and seeing 9 trillion buttons.4. The node network.5. The UI is awful6. The lack of simple instructional materials. Not get started stuff. But Tutorials for people beyond the very basics.7. The Math.8. Function nodes.9. UI, Render times10. The math nodes11. the lack of good documentation12. Creating realistic looking clouds. Lack of user guide for all functions.13. Interface/nodes14. The lack of documentation or user's manual as well as an intimidating interface.15. Steep learning curve16. View Responses17. How to approach solving visualisation aspects. E.g. wind on lake, breakers on shore, GI in animations, geocontrol2 as a DEM. overlapping multiple DEMs, projecting maps onto multiple DEMs. positioning terrain away from world origin without skew errors.18. understanding workflow19. Learning to look at pictures and real landscapes and seeing mentally what functions and PF are needed to make a scene.

How Active would you be in a webinar?

(More than one option could be checked)

I would just listen. 30.0%I would respond to instant polls. 40.0%I would use instant messaging to ask a question. 60.0%I would ask a question with audio. 30.0%I would like to talk about my own artwork or techniques with others. 20.0%

We're planning to hold five webinar sessions of up to 1.5 hours per session through a weekend. Most sessions will be on Saturday and Sunday evenings (GMT). Each session will include a top Terragen artist to meet and learn from. Concerning the number and length of sessions:-

That sounds about right. I should be able to attend all sessions. 42.9%I'd like to see one or two more sessions. 28.6%I'd like to see less sessions. 0.0%The length of the sessions sounds about right. 42.9%The length of the sessions should be longer. 0.0%The length of the sessions should be shorter. 14.3%

Ota's comment: Shorter, maybe an hour each, could participate in a couple of them 7. The reason I say shorter is partly because of my own time constraints and partly because I'd like to see as different sessions/topics as possible. I would love to be able to participate offline via recorded sessions. Due to commitments and the time difference I may only be at the computer for part of the scheduled time. I love the idea of this conference, it would be a first for TG!

What I especially find interesting is that there still seems to be the relative stubborn misconception that you need to understand math or need to understand how function nodes (blue nodes) work.I can assure everyone that you indeed can do nice things with it, but it seriously is not key to making fun and nice images with TG2.Anyway, an opportunity to discuss and demonstrate that in the webinars!

If I look at the survey as a whole I see many inter-related issues.The UI, at first sight perhaps pretty daunting, and the node network especially speaks for themselves only once you understand the logic and structure of node networks.In order to understand that you first need to understand the flow of data(types) and how you can use this.As said before in other topics the TG2 node network is a kind of language, where the nodes are the words and the data types make the grammar.

Perhaps the webinars will be a TG2 language course with example driven tutorials.Some specific issues from this survey lend themselves as very good examples of explaining the TG2 language.

What's my name doing under item 11? Need I be explained? I agree with Martin about the blue nodes, you don't really need them to make good work (I hardly use them. Only the few networks I understand). Don't put your hopes on me for explaining render times or animation either, and some of the other stuff. I often need to re-invent the wheel in a new setup, experimentation is paramount! I'm not yet sure if I can participate in the live sessions....

I just feel like a kid in a candy store! T-U's site on its way, these webinars, and update. Happy Xmas to me!!

Ulco, just pick a subject that you know very well and talk to us about that. Whatever it is, you know it better than I do, so I will learn something no matter what it is. I imagine it will be the same for more than a few others too.

I think your name appeared in item 11 by mistake, from my copying and pasting over of the text from the survey. Sorry about this- I'll see if I can still edit the post and adjust!

Most of the webinar sessions will be held on Saturday/Sunday evening of the 19th/20th- so if you could make one of those evenings, I'm sure you'd get a warm welcome from the TG community in presenting something live.

Paul

Quote from: Dune on December 12, 2012, 02:34:06 amWhat's my name doing under item 11? Need I be explained? I agree with Martin about the blue nodes, you don't really need them to make good work (I hardly use them. Only the few networks I understand). Don't put your hopes on me for explaining render times or animation either, and some of the other stuff. I often need to re-invent the wheel in a new setup, experimentation is paramount! I'm not yet sure if I can participate in the live sessions....

•How Oshyan first got involved with Terragen and how working with the Terragen community drew him in to a higher level of involvement •How the TG community has developed since Oshyan was involved. •What was Terragen's roots? Did it have much influence from Bryce? •What are the key advantages of Terragen 2 over Terragen classic? •The story of how Paramount's 100th anniversary logo was created with Terragen 2. •Terragen 2 and X-Frog plants. How easy is it to populate a scene with vegetation? Is it quite scalable in terms of the amount of vegetation that can fill a landscape? •Has Ranch Computing's render farm service been put to good use by hobbyists as well as professionals? •The discount available for Terragen 2 with X-Frog bundle during the Christmas 2012 period.

I will have 3 example scenes prepared, and I will walk you through exactly how to make certain cloud types. I will have

1 - How to go from the default skies and clouds to some realistic looking cumulus clouds2 - How to make a monster cumulonimbus clouds and make it look real! (The last part is the hard part, but I will tell you all the tricks)3 - if time permits: The secret sauce for amazing sunsets!

I've already been in touch with you already - so I think you've figured to use the "Contact and Support" tab on the main menu of the website home page. https://3dartlive.com/contact/

The download link appears to be okay from my perspective, and I've had other customers report this link is okay. However I may switch this link to a different service, such as Amazon S3 to ensure that this works correctly on first attempt. I've sent you an alternative link in the meantime.

On Chrome the contact and support tab on your site didn't provide, or at least link, to the "contact form". I manually typed in the /contact/ to gain access to that page.The new link you sent me is working.

Hi I know this is an old post, but I came across the this tonight, and proceeded to order the TERRALIVE Bundle recordings. After paying and receiving the download like.... it appears to be broken and takes me to the homepage. the message reads "Invalid download link. Go to homepage" Is there a link that is currently working?